Hispanicize spotlights growing Hispanic buying power

El Sentinel editor Debbie Ramirez interviewed Hollywood actress Rosario Dawson at Hispanicize, a social media event taking place this week at Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami. Dawson, co-founder of Voto Latino, a national group that encourages Hispanics to register and vote.

El Sentinel editor Debbie Ramirez interviewed Hollywood actress Rosario Dawson at Hispanicize, a social media event taking place this week at Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami. Dawson, co-founder of Voto Latino, a national group that encourages Hispanics to register and vote.

Marketing to Hispanics doesn't just mean talking to them in Spanish — businesses can effectively reach them via English advertisement as long as their Hispanic culture is embedded in the message, emphasized marketing strategists Wednesday at the Hispanicize conference in Miami.

"We enjoy living in both cultures. You want to be Latino and American," said Cesar Melgoza, founder and CEO of Miami-based Geoscape, which offers research, analytics and business consulting services. "What we are seeing is a movement toward the middle, to be in both worlds."

Melgoza was among dozens of speakers on the third day of Hispanicize, a weeklong conference that over its seven years has become a platform for tech entrepreneurs, retailers, filmmakers and other industries to launch new campaigns and products designed to capture the growing Hispanic population and its buying power.

The conference is billed as the largest annual event for Latino trendsetters and newsmakers.

Melgoza highlighted that U.S. economic growth depends on the Hispanic population and Hispanic-owned businesses. By 2021 there will be 68 million Hispanics living in the U.S., up from nearly 60 million this year, according to Geoscape's 2016 American Marketscape DataStream report released Wednesday.

Now in its seventh year, Hispanicize 2016 Week is an annual event for Latino trendsetters and newsmakers, with such speakers as actress Rosario Dawson, in the InterContinental Miami on April 6-8.

According to Geoscape, Hispanic households' consumer spending potential — or households' cumulative life spending — is projected to be around $2.17 million, compared with $1.6 million of non-Hispanic white households.

The South Florida consumer in particular tends to be more culturally and economically diverse, with many immigrants from all parts of Latin America, including professionals who move here employed by multinational companies, Melgoza said.

The 7th annual Hispanicize goes on until Friday and is expected to draw in as many as 3,000 people, from marketers to tech entrepreneurs to newsmakers.

This year's Hispanicize features more than 220 speakers participating in more than 100 panel discussions, case studies and town halls.

Another panel led by digital strategists emphasized the need to be authentic with Latino millennials, which they quantified as 42 percent of the U.S. Hispanic population and 27 percent of the nation's millennial population, generally defined as those between 18 and 34 years old.

Kimberly Stohl, director of public relations firm Citizen Relations, said ultimately brands want to connect and engage with millennials, but they may not achieve that if the approach isn't in tune with their values.